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Wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner placed under house arrest

The wife of Chinese political activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was placed under house arrest in Beijing by Chinese authorities on Sunday, an American-based NGO has announced.

AFP - The wife of the Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is being detained in her Beijing home, the spokeswoman for a US based rights group said Sunday.

“She is currently under de facto house arrest back in her apartment in Beijing,” said Beth Schwanke, legislative counsel for the US-based group Freedom Now, speaking about the dissident’s wife Liu Xia.

Schwanke told AFP that after it was announced Friday that her husband had received the prestigious award, Liu’s phone was taken away and she was informed that she would be detained.

“They told her she would be taken to the prison where he husband is being held,” said Schwanke.

A second group, Human Rights in China, announced Sunday that it also had received word of Liu Xia’s arrest and said in a statement that it “strongly urges the international community to press the Chinese authorities to immediately release Liu Xia from house arrest, free Liu Xiaobo, and free all prisoners of conscience incarcerated as a result of exercising their right of freedom of expression.”

Liu, the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is a 54-year-old writer imprisoned since December after authoring Charter 08, a manifesto signed by thousands seeking greater rights in the communist nation.